Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [47]
She picked up her potted plant and put it down again. “For all of those of you at home, just thank your lucky stars you can’t see me through the radio. I look just like an old frump this morning and, believe it or not, I am still in my robe. Between the storm and so many calls the time just got away from me. And today of all days. The very day when we are announcing our brand-new sponsor, the Cecil Figgs Mortuaries and Floral Designs for all your floral and funeral needs, and here I sit with no face on, in my hair net, and still in my robe. And I do apologize, Mr. Figgs, and I promise to do better tomorrow.”
Dorothy looked at Bobby sitting in the front row with Beatrice, happily chomping away on a radio cookie, and suddenly realized something. “Excuse me a minute, girls,” she said and put her hand over the microphone. “What are you doing out of school, young man?”
“I had to go get Beatrice,” he said.
“That was very sweet of you but I think we can get along without you the rest of the morning.
“Sorry, everyone. I have a boy here who needs to be at school, so if anybody’s listening in the teachers’ lounge, he will be right there . . . and call me if he’s not.” A moment later the audience heard the front door slam.
“Rats,” said Bobby, stomping off to school.
Dorothy, who was still searching for her format, announced, “And now here’s Beatrice to sing for us on this rainy old day, ‘Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella’ followed by ‘Painting the Clouds with Sunshine,’ and maybe by then I’ll find what I’m looking for.”
The rest of the year went by with no more major upsets or dramas and was fairly uneventful until Saturday, June the first, at 4:16 in the afternoon, when something major did happen.
Life Changes
Bobby had been down at the drugstore since early that morning, working in the stockroom unloading boxes and stacking them in a pile outside the back door in the alley. He received an allowance of fifty cents a week but he wanted to earn extra money so he could send off for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course. He and Monroe had vowed to become muscle men before they went back to school next September. Considering that he weighed sixty-eight pounds soaking wet and had arms like sticks, it was an ambitious goal. He had whipped through boxes of red-and-white straws, paper napkins, boxes of shampoo, cough medicine, baby powder, aspirin, Band-Aids, and Whitman’s Samplers in record time. He was in a hurry. Today was the day the swimming pool opened for the season.
Doc paid him his fifty cents and yelled after him as he ran out the back door, “Be careful, son, don’t hit your head on the diving board.” Doc heard a faint “Yes, sir” as Bobby ran as fast as he could down the block, heading for home. Neighbor Dorothy had just told her radio listeners that, unlike other prune juices on the market, Sunsweet prune juice was guaranteed by Good Housekeeping to have the same laxative potency in every glassful when he came flying through the screen door, slamming it behind him, wham, on the way to his room. Neighbor Dorothy informed her listeners, “As you might have guessed, that was Bobby,” and went on to announce that a Mrs. Aline Staggers of Arden, Oklahoma, was interested in locating a recipe for old-fashioned strawberry-and-rhubarb pie. “So if you have a good one, send it on in.” At that moment Bobby came crashing down the hall carrying his bathing suit in one hand but before he hit the front door his mother said, “Hold it, young man!” and